 Senate government operations Tuesday, March 9th, and we are back from our big town meeting break. Some of us had a relaxing time and some of us didn't, but we're all back here now. So now we have S-25, which is some amendments to what was S-54 last year, and I believe became Act 164, maybe. I'm not exactly sure. I think other people know better than I what the Act was that it became. So the way I'd like to do this is to try to do it in a pretty orderly fashion. We had three issues last time that I think we all agreed on. I'd like to just make sure that we're all in agreement with those first and then get those out of the way and then move on to other ones. I've made myself a little list here so that hopefully we can go in an orderly fashion if that makes sense to everybody. Okay. So the first change we made to S-25 was on page two, which is the part that would require opt-ins for the towns. What this says is that if they haven't taken a vote by 2023, we moved it out a year because it just took too short a timeframe for the municipalities. So if they haven't voted by 2023, then it'll revert them back to being a town that allows retail. That's the way it was done with alcohol, and that's the suggestion here, and there's no language, and we should all have that amendment. I think it's posted also. So did we agree on that? I thought we did. Yeah. I just want to make sure here that we're so that, okay. All right. I'm checking that one off. It really means the only reason the town would have to vote is if they want to say no. Right. They'd have to opt out. After March 23, they'd have to opt out. But a town might want to vote to opt in long before 2023. I mean, they might choose to do that just so that it's clear to anybody who I'd like to set up an establishment. So the second thing we did was for the Cannabis Control Board, we put in the section that would allow the removal by two-thirds of the advisory committee. In addition to the other two members. It's an or, isn't it? Yes. And or? It's an or. It's not an or. Right. Okay. There are two options for removal. Right. Okay. Everybody okay with that? Okay. Then the third thing we did was change the timing for the advisory committee to have them seated by April 1st and have the first meeting called by the Secretary of Agriculture by the 15th. So that they can be advisory to the committee that they're supposed to be advisory to. They needed to be seated first. Did every center calmer. Thank you, Madam Chair. A question. Today's March 9th, April 1st is about three weeks away. I know. Is that realistic? Yeah. Good. Thank you, Senator. Probably not, but I think it gives the intent. It shows the intent that they should be seated before the CCB is. Okay. Thank you. And I'm for it. And they could, you know, if the governor is so interested, he could start appoint and people could start appointing them even before this is passed. I don't have to wait. Senator Clarkson, we still have no word on the appointments to the CCB, do we? No, no. Okay. But did everybody agree with that the timing? Okay. Yes. Good. Now we're done with that amendment. So this morning in judiciary. We talked about a lot of things and Mark and Jeffrey and Virginia were all with us. And some things were it's, it's hard. This bill is hard because it kind of straddles so many committees and we weren't sure. So judiciary is sending the agriculture issues to the agriculture committee and asking them to weigh in on it because we felt there and I feel the same way here kind of is that we don't, we can't, it's hard for us to talk about the production cap for mixed lighting grows or, I mean, that's, that's not, that's an agricultural issue and that they should be weighing in on it. So Senator Calamari, you will be getting that. Senator Polina, are you still on there? Oh yeah. Yes, I am. I go everywhere Brian goes. Exactly. We're together from sun up to sundown. Oh good. Okay. So you'll be getting some requests from judiciary. But then I'm going to just kind of give a list here of the things that I think we need to look at today. And I also have purposely not scheduled anything for Thursday and Friday so that we can continue any discussions we need to continue. But as much as possible, perhaps, looking at as much as we can today. So I'm sorry, but is this on a time frame or a crossover? If we get it, we're trying to get this done for crossover? Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's what I saw, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm going to say Passover. I did that once. I did that once and I was, I'd have to check myself every single time. But there are aspects, Anthony, of Passover and crossover that are quite similar. Yeah, they're both painful. The food isn't quite as good. Or which one? Well, there's no food for crossover. Okay, so here's just a list of the things that I think that we talked about this morning that we should be talking about here. One is Senator Rahm's amendment. One is taken from the. We had it, we had the draft for Representative Tina's bill that was introduced by him and I think a lot of other people or some people. Anyway, now it is an actual bill. It's H414, but the draft is pretty similar. And one of the things that he had in there or that they had in there. And I understand that a lot of this came from a lot of different groups, including the Social Equity Caucus, Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, the Vermont Growers Association. So it's kind of a group effort by a lot of people. So one of the things that they is in there is the Cannabis Business Development Fund and where the funding for that comes from, what the uses are and who administers the fund. So that's that's one area that we'll be looking at. Then the other is some issues that Virginia Renfrew brought up that came from the dispensaries. There is a name for it, but I can't think of what. They call themselves. And then the other one is looking at a license structure and how to word the license structure in language so that we're giving the cannabis control board direction on how to set up the licensing structure, but not go into a lot of detail. And I think Graham had some what I thought was really good language at the end of the session this morning. So maybe he can talk about that. So those are kind of the issues that I see here. Does anybody have anything else to throw in right away? And we can talk about these in more general terms also. But I think these are the things that we are going to be looking at. So, Jenna, are the Graham is Graham Campbell from Jaffa or someone else? No, Graham Graham. I can't pronounce his last name is difficult to pronounce. But he's from Vermont. Yeah, OK. And he just had some good language about directing the cannabis control board to to look at different things around the licensing structure without detailing what they were supposed to do. So we'll get to that. So does anybody have, yeah, Senator Polina. Yeah, I feel weird asking this question, but I keep hearing about Senator Rahm's amendment and I honestly don't know what it is. Is there a way? And it's not. Is it on our website? I can't. I think it is. And she presented it to us. But where is it? I think it's on our website. But Michelle asked if we wanted it in this. Flow of documents today, but it I think we had previously just been looking at it from judiciary's Web's website from their documents. So should we go to should we go to their website to see it? Is it Michelle, you're on mute and Gail just posted it. OK, I was going to send it to Gail. Do you want me to I can email it to y'all as well. If you want me to let email it to us, that's the best. OK, OK, all right. So any other issues that you can think of right now that we should address? Yeah, I think those are those are the key ones. So if I can make a suggestion, there's one issue here that I don't know that takes a lot of discussion. And it is Virginia Renfrew had suggested that we move the medical program under the CCB. And so I just wondered if if we can look at that and it because it seems to me pretty cut and dried and administrative. We either agree with it or we don't. But there isn't a lot of gray area. So Virginia, would you like to? Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and nice to see you all. So I'm Virginia Renfrew. I'm with the Vermont Cannabis Trade Association, which consists of the five medical cannabis dispensaries. And, you know, listen listening to the discussions that have been going on and, you know, the timeline kind of being thrown off. And one of our thoughts is to move the cannabis to the move the medical program over under the cannabis board once it's established and that will bring with it three staff people. Who could actually help the cannabis board with some of the things that they need to do. And the woman who runs the medical program, she's been with it since, I believe, 2008. So she definitely has a lot of knowledge. And one of the unfortunate things that we have seen is that the Department of Public Safety really is not that interested in this program and so, you know, getting it over under the cannabis board, which we believe would have more interest in kind of more dedication to ensuring that medical patients, you know, can still have their program and and have more support. So committee. Oh, and I just. I forgot to say that one of the things that's in the amendment. So we already talked about was adding a member from the the can of the dispensaries. And there is an association name, but adding that member to the advisory committee. But now. So what do you what? Where are you committed? You have Senator Colomar. Thank you, Madam Chair. So Virginia, I'm just curious. You said that the Department of Public Safety has no interest. I don't know what that means exactly. Well, I know that last year, the commissioner, Shirley testified in House appropriations actually saying that he'd be fine if the program moved over to agriculture. And what we've just seen is that they're just not really putting any type of support into that program. It's there and I believe that it needs to be under the cannabis board to have more support. OK, it was originally. Oh, Senator Polina, I just want to talk a little bit more about that. When you say they're not with the program, which what do you think they should be doing? I'm just curious, like, how could what would you like to see public safety doing or the cannabis review board, any of them? Well, I mean, I think, you know, a good example is when the pandemic hit and we reached out immediately to them and asked them, you know, to have us be have the dispensaries be essential because for patients, it is essential. It's no different than going to the pharmacy and it fell on silent ears until we got legislators involved who then reached out and then we were able to get it to be listed as essential. It's those kind of things that we see, you know, whether it's, you know, allowing the person who runs the program to come into the state house and testify. It's that has not happened and actually talk about what are the needs of the patients? You know, we have rules that were put in in 2015 and they have not been updated. There's, you know, I hear you. And they have three, three, there's three staff people. There's three staff people. I think originally it was when we were doing the dispensaries originally, it was a toss up of whether they should go to the Department of Health or Department of Public Safety and nobody really wanted them. But Department of Public Safety seemed to resonate with more legislators to get the bill passed in the first place because of the the public safety issue. Yeah, the Department of Health did not want it and they actually opposed the legislation. So where are we committed with that? Makes sense. Senator Clarkson, it makes sense to me. It has never been a perfect fit. And I think that now that we have the Cannabis Control Board, it is a natural umbrella for it. Senator Colomar, I'm fine with it. Senator Rom. Yeah. Senator Paul, Polina. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I'm just going to cross that one off and we'll put that one in also, Michelle. Can I ask a couple of questions? Sure. About that. So so right now under Act 164, the program and the positions are supposed to transfer over on March 1st of 2022. And so this will be doing it, you know, several months earlier, but because the board won't and what happens when it when the program transfers under the current act is then the new medical and dispensary statutes that were enacted last year will take effect. And as well as the whatever rules the board is adopting for the medical program and the dispensaries. And so if you're moving the program over earlier, it's going to have to continue to operate under the existing Department of Public Safety statutes and the existing Department of Public Safety rules. When it goes to the board, because the other stuff won't be in effect yet and the board won't have any rules, any new rules pursuant to those new statutes. So I just wanted to make sure that everybody's clear on that. And because I typically don't work on that kind of stuff, I'll have to check in with probably like Amron or O'Grady or somebody to kind of just check around the logistics of that of that all happening. But I just want to let you know, those are some things to kind of figure out is around the logistics of of how they'll operate under the old system. But under a new entity before the new stuff drops down. And it be phased in as the ability of the CCB board is able to deal with it. I mean, Kevin. Go ahead, Michelle. I was just going to say, so the a lot of the the statutes that are are in for the medical and dispensaries right now, they a lot of them have been there since the very beginning when it was adopted and there they a lot of them. They don't really make sense when compared to what a what a an adult use market and the new adult use market that you all have adopted in 164 and so the new statutes are to have more parity. So you don't have like patients having to jump through a bunch of hoops to get cannabis that that patient wouldn't have to jump through if they just went to a retail store. And so you kind of need you need the new stuff to kind of come in. But the board can only adopt rules as fast as they can adopt rules according to the APA. And so I'm not sure, you know, I think when we were working on this, you know, last year, the year before all stuff, we tried to figure out how to move the move it over earlier, but it was just a little too complicated. So there are more actually, I think, Senator, how does he end up? Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I was just going to say that we just did something like this in the Agriculture Committee. We moved the program from agency of natural resources to the agency of agriculture. But until the agriculture rights to rules for it, it'll still still be operating under the A&R rules, although it'll be being done under under the age of agriculture. So you might ask Michael Grady about that. I mean, it's exactly what we did. We said we're moving this over. But until the rules are there, you're still going to go by the old rules, but under the new agency. Right. I think I'll call them. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I think it might be proven also to ask Virginia whether she sees this as a obstacle or whether, since obviously you're used to the rules, if they've been in effect since 2015, it wouldn't present any new issues for you. I mean, I don't think so. I mean, I certainly would look to Michelle and to Michael Grady on how that would work. But yeah, I mean, the medical law has changed since 2015. So some of those rules are already out of date because we have new statues. So I think that we can work within that as we have been doing. And I'd also like to just add that it's important to remember that the medical program is all self-sufficient. It does not take any taxpayer money. It's run by the fees from the dispensaries and from the patients and from the caregivers and employees too. So that's good to know. Thank you. Any more issues with that? OK. All right, so I spoke too soon when I thought that your four pieces were all that we needed to be additionally addressing. We also have this memo from Monica Hutt, which we may or may not want to, which may or may not have anything for us to consider because she addressed it to both of you, both you and Dick. And we do have I forwarded that to everybody. Right. Thank you. And we know I will, just to be clear here, I will ask Monica, if you want to weigh in, I know that you disagree with our decision about the removal of the board members. So Monica, if you would like to just weigh in on that, just to make sure we hear from you. I don't know what your title is, if we call you Director or Commissioner or Chief. Chief Prevention Officer. I know. Good afternoon. Or just Monica is absolutely fine. Good afternoon, everybody. This is, I think, my third week or my fourth week in this brand new role. So so thanks for asking me to come today. And I'm interested just to listen and hear all your thinking. I did send that memo, collected some information from the administration, and I think that the specific issue, Senator White, that you wanted me to speak to was the accountability of the board. And certainly from an administration perspective, there is some concern that board members can only be removed for just cause by other board members, even though they are exempt state employees. And so it doesn't give the governor or create any accountability for that board, I think, from the governor's perspective. And that was one of the concerns that we were wanting to raise for the committee to consider. Right, I think that we, and I know that the administration feels there are some constitutional issues here, but our Judge Council has assured us that there is not. And in reading the Constitution, it does say that the, I've got it right here, and also to appoint officers, except where provision is or shall be otherwise made by law. So the appointment and removal of officers is subject to the law as well. So I know that there's disagreement about that. And we did add another avenue, just because, as Senator Colomore pointed out the other day, what if you had a disagreement between the two people and you couldn't do anything, couldn't move. So we did add the advisory board. And a number of those members are appointed by the governor. So Senator Colomore. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, so I'd like to ask Monica whether, since the governor allowed this to become law without, if I'm remembering correctly, without his signature, why was that concern not voiced at that time? Because as the chair just mentioned, all we've done is provide an alternative vehicle for removal. The original bill did not involve the gubernatorial right to remove either, I don't think. He objected then too. Yeah, I was going to say, I believe in a letter that he issued, he did raise this as an issue Senator. All right, thank you. And in fact, I think Jay Johnson testified to the committees that it was unconstitutional also. But we also know that the Green Mountain Care Board, this is how they function. So, all right. So, can we move on then to our next set of issues? So, I am a little torn here, so I want some advice from the committee. Senator Rom has an amendment and it, why don't you tell us what it does? And then what I'd like to do then is then talk about the Cannabis Business Development Fund. For the record, Senator Keisha Rom. So, this has not even received a bill number, so I just want to say that it was the beginning of an idea that I ran by Senator Sears and he asked me to come present it in committee. And I would be very open to changes to any of the details involved. But it was essentially building off of the idea that the war on drugs and particularly the over-criminalization of black and brown people in terms of trafficking or buying and selling of cannabis and marijuana has had a deep impact on communities that experience higher levels of policing. There are conversations happening around the state about how to reimagine public safety in a way that's cognizant of how much we increased law enforcement and law enforcement activity around drugs. And that included high levels of incarceration at one time for marijuana possession, maybe not as high levels in Vermont, but that has been a national trend. So, this would take a percentage of the marijuana cannabis revenues up to a cap. And I know that some of those numbers are changing right now, so very open to changes there. To distribute in small grants through a number of racial justice and social justice organizations in the state helping to guide the process to offer small grants to our municipalities who want to have discussions about what public safety is going to look like. I know there was a sticking point about it being prioritized for municipalities that are having conversations about how to reduce the size of their law enforcement. I would certainly still personally argue that we have seen an increase in the number of law enforcement officers out there post-war on drugs, post-criminalization of cannabis, but at the same time, if that language is a sticking point for folks, I think that isn't part and parcel to the overall trend that I'm seeing around the state, which is a lot of communities want to bring law enforcement and community leaders to the table and have a conversation about how to build trust and restore a shared sense of envision around public safety. And they are very depleted of funds to be able to have those conversations in a meaningful way. So absent that, there's a lot of strife and a lot of conflict. And this looked like a vehicle to have that conversation. I also understand that it may not be the, people may not see the nexus as clearly as I do, which I appreciate. And I would be happy to have this conversation related to the general fund or other funds. I do believe it's really timely. And I take Senator Polina's point from the week before crossover that this money would not materialize for some time. And these conversations are pretty ripe and happening right now. So, and that all said, I just want to also say that this in no way is me contradicting or trying to remove support from the other provision that we're talking about, which I believe has a very strong nexus around people who have been who've had their lives disrupted by the war on drugs and are now, have had family members that may have happened to, but either way are trying to participate in the legal market and deserve some reparative access to that. So I will tell you my, I am not opposed to having a fund to be used for this purpose, but I am opposed to earmarking revenue from this source to we, a compromise was reached last year to put 30% of it into prevention and education. That was a compromise reached between the house and the Senate. And my feeling is that the revenues should go to the general fund and the general fund then should figure out where they're most needed. And I will tell you that I've had at least five different advocacy groups, I mean, not advocacy groups, but issue oriented higher education K through 12 that want to earmark the funds from this revenue source. So my, I am not opposed to the fund itself, but I am opposed to earmarking money from this revenue source. So I just throw that out. So other people, committee members, Senator Colomar. Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree. I think this is one of those situations where we still don't have, in my mind, at least a firm estimate of what number we're talking about to begin with. And it seems like a little duck keeps coming and taking the piece of it away every time we turn around and look and that if we're not careful, there won't be any money left. So I agree with the chair. I think there are other ways for Senator Rahm's idea to come to fruition, but it's probably not a good idea to do with this one. I will backtrack here just a little bit and say that I do believe that municipalities should share in the 14% by a split there. But yes, Senator Clarkson. Yes, you have a bill in finance, which definitely supports the notion that municipalities should share in the revenue. I actually think to get immediate results, Kasia, that a good partnership on this work, because I think this work needs to be done, but I think that we don't need to go to this sort of statutory effort to get it done. We have now a very robust restorative justice center at the law school. I think actually this is a great opportunity for Bobby Sand to partner with municipalities in the league and offer restorative justice consulting with communities that would like to engage in this work. And I think we could work on something that could be done right away, and without waiting for revenue, and without earmarking anything, and without going through that battle. And also, so much of what people are wanting now is the cart before the horse, and we've just got to get this board up and running first. But this, if we partnered with the restorative justice center working with the LCT, we could get these opportunities out the door, like right away, and create a real dialogue as they open these markets in towns. Anyway, it just struck me that that could actually happen faster and maybe more productively. Yeah, in response, I would just say, absolutely, I'm talking to Bobby Sand, and totally hear that. I think what happens when, and even in response to this notion of some revenue sharing for communities, the communities that just tend to have a little bit more revenue on hand can put money toward these conversations, and the ones that may have this issue, but their community doesn't prioritize it for an investment. You may need a community group to be saying, please help us get this money so that we can do the work in our community without waiting for the town to prioritize it. Right. So, just sort of figuring out a way to even out the access to this kind of conversation. It certainly feels, even in Chittin County, very uneven from conversations, and I can say the same about the rest of the state from anecdotally. But yeah, I would be really open to other forms of getting this out there. I just think there needs to be a little bit of money from the state that says, and even if the prioritization is instead to a certain size of community, I just think they're really depleted of funds to make this a priority in places where it really should be a priority. This might be, I don't know if this would be doable at all, but we are getting some one-time money and we might be able to somehow tie these conversations to the kind of closure that we've had because of the pandemic and just increasing those conversations. So, it might be that that would be a faster and more reliable source. I don't know, but we could talk to Jane Kitchell about that. That sounds good, and I don't wanna complicate things too much, but my final point would be, I do see just an overall need for communities wanna build equity plans. They wanna protect candidates who are running from diverse backgrounds. They wanna have conversations to repair harm when someone in a public role puts out something that may appear or be experienced as racist to others in the community. There's a lot of discord between police and community members. Towns are having these conversations and they're just not doing it on equal footing because they don't have the same resources. So, I would really love to continue to explore how communities have these conversations without it being uneven. So, maybe we have the conversation aside from this bill and have the conversation and make a recommendation to appropriations. I'm ready to go down that route and let us do the cannabis bill separately. And have Bobby come in and Senator Polina. Yeah, I'm torn. I think it's a good idea. I think the conversation needs to happen. I agree that everybody wants some of this money and that makes it hard to say yes to one and say no to all the others. I'm just wondering off the top of my head whether this would, when you talk about encouraging the conversations through one time appropriations and I know they're already overworked but what about the social equity office or whatever it's called? You know, whether they would be able to take it on. If they were given funding to do it, I don't mean just make them take it on but just seems like a logical place to maybe operate out of. I can say without speaking for Susanna, we have been in the same conversations with municipalities asking for thought partnership around this work and she has some ideas. And it may be when we talk to her about candidates who are experiencing great harassment and threats, we could also ask her about what she has in mind and how we might be able to support her and that I actually think that's a great idea without overburdening her with anything new. Sure. Well, I'm assuming we're gonna give her more money this year, but we'll see. So, I, I just wanted to add, we also don't need to reinvent the wheel here or funding because there is funding in our justice centers. I mean, we also have established places, in addition to the restorative justice work law school reach out to, we have Susanna and we have justice centers that could also help this dialogue and facilitate it. So, you know, there is funding and there are organizations. I'm gonna move us away from this conversation because we're gonna have this conversation in a different context, but we have to do something about S-25 or we won't do it. So I'm gonna stop this conversation now if that's okay with everybody and we will continue it, but in a different approach, knowing that the need is there and that we support the need and the, but not the funding source. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. So then what I would ask us to do is look at, and this is from the H-14 and it is found if I think it's posted, but it is H-414. It's on the website, the house website. And it comes from, it is found on page, no, I can't. I've had the page in the- It's section two and it starts on page three with the definitions. Yeah, but there was a very specific cannabis business development fund. Right, I just mentioned that with the definitions is because in order to read the section 986 on definitions 987, which is the business development fund and then 988, which is the loans and grants from that fund all go together. So I would say it's those three statutory sections and I just excerpted them and put them on a blank sheet of paper. Would it be helpful for me to send that to you guys instead of you having to sort through the bill? Yeah. Yeah, okay. And I would be great. For some reason, I had page six pulled out of my bill. So I'm sitting here looking from page five to seven and can't find page six. Michelle, if you would email that to us, that would be great. I'm sending it right now to you and to Gail as well. So can I just ask the people who are with us today? Jeffrey, Mark, Graham, if you have any comments on what we've talked about so far, not getting into the, and I don't, I really don't wanna get any more into the issue of the community grants because we're going to talk about that in a different venue. So I know that's an important issue, but I just wanna make sure that we do it in a more thoughtful way further on. So do any of you have any comments about what we've talked about so far? Mark Hughes, Racial Justice Alliance Executive Director for the record, good afternoon. Hello, Mike. How's everyone? Good. Awesome. I appreciate being invited to the committee again, Senator White and our spinning long days together. So I'm glad to be here again. I wanted to just also lift up the premise of the Senator Rahm's proposed bill and the essence of some of the language that you will find in H414. For clarity, this is a Racial Justice Alliance bill carried by Representative Brian Cina. And I think instead of going into detail just because of how to chair us position this, I think it would probably be best just to say that there is work that must occur in our communities. There is work that is occurring in our communities and the revenue stream from something such as, and I'll use the term deliberately, marijuana, is not only symbolic, but is emblematic to the damage that it's caused and continues to cause across the United States as well as Vermont. And at the same time, there are other ways to repair this damage. So I just wanted to just lift up with the Senator position, acknowledge the fact that there are other ways, express disappointment that these, I guess the term that was used as nexus, this nexus is not as readily apparent to other members of the committee, but also offer willingness to have that conversation and more in moving forward because this is not just about marijuana and this is about the damage that systemic racism causes to black and brown folks has caused and continues to cause. This was one vehicle, it just happens to be right now that we're having a conversation about an emerging market and we find no favor in any market. So this market is not an exception and the system is not an anomaly. It's producing the same impact that it has historically on black and brown folks. So I would be remiss if I didn't at least offer that in sitting amongst the committee. This is important work. The work that is currently happening in Burlington has never been about defunding the police. It has always been a combined effort that went towards restructuring and you will see a bill that's emerging from us on restructuring public safety. So everyone is safe. So everyone feels safe as well as the whole economic peace, the equal opportunity, the economic and cultural empowerment and the racial equity inclusion. It's a package and so I just, again, appreciate the time. I'm looking forward to also having the opportunity to speak to where the section 989 community and social equity program. Yep, I just got an F 35 that went over some, maybe you missed part of what I just said. But in addition to that, there is another part of this policy that's in front of you that speaks directly to this issue that you're talking about. So when we return to it, I would love to have the opportunity to share that with you as well because it speaks to how we do this work in the communities in the revenue streams that could be produced to do that work. Thanks. Thanks, Mark. So Jeffrey or Graham, do you have any comment about, and I will tell you that this morning, Graham was making some comments and his, I don't know, maybe six month old daughter was objecting strenuously in the background to what he was saying. He said she was in support of it, but we think that he, she was actually objecting. So Graham or Jeffrey, do you wanna comment on what we've done so far? And I don't wanna get any more into the conversation about the community work because we're going to have that later. So would any, either of you like to comment on what we've done so far? Which is only about five things. Hi folks. This is Graham Uninks, Drew Pinocht, policy director at Rolvermont for the record. This is Juniper who Chair White was speaking about. She's sleeping on my chest now, she's 11 months old. Yeah, I just wanted to speak similarly to Mark. I understand how you're framing this Chair White. And just speaking, as Rolvermont's been a small agricultural organization in the state for since 1985, I'm sure Senator Polina can speak to this as he was one of the founders of the organization. And as we got involved in this work with what was S54, the relationship to the history of the criminalization of this plant, but also the criminalization of communities, people who were associated with it and how racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, et cetera was also deeply associated with this plant and with the law enforcement response has been critical to our understanding of how we need to approach this going forward. So I'm glad to hear that you're gonna be working on this going forward even if you're not supported at this point of how Senator Rahm's amendment seeks to find funding. I understand sort of the challenge you're speaking about when it comes to the compromise made historically with the house in relationship to how that funding would be spent. And similarly to what Mark said, we certainly support this conversation going forward about how policing and law enforcement can be restructured in our communities, but also just the understanding of the fundamental relationship of cannabis prohibition and criminalization to a significant amount of violence and harm done in peoples and communities lives. So just seeking to voice our support for the sort of core issue here and the relationship of this industry to needing to be able to afford through this industry some of those repairs holistically, not simply for those who wanna be involved in the industry, but I'll leave it there for now and appreciate it and I'll listen and speak more to those more ag-based stuff going forward. Thank you, Graham. Jeffrey, did you wanna say something? I do. Thank you, Madam Chair and Senators. Great to see you again for the record. Jeffrey Fisatello, Executive Director, Co-Founder of Vermont Gross Association, representing the mom and pops, the farms, the small businesses in the emerging legal marketplace. There's not much more to add to actually what Graham and Mark had brought up. So I'll take a slightly different angle just to share some of what other states have gone through, some trials and tribulations. Can I just back up here a little bit? I want us to move forward, but we have a whole list of other things to address here. So what I was asking was if you had any comments about what we've already done and I hate to cut you off, but what we've already done is done the opt-in for the towns, remove the removal for the CCB, the advisory committee timing, and moving the medical program to the CCB. That's what we've done so far. Okay. And we've talked about going forward with Senator Rahm's proposal, but in a different venue. So I really don't wanna talk about that now because we won't get to the other issues that we have to do. Our conversation for that will be, we'll devote a whole day to it, but not today. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Oh, no problem. And thank you for clarifying. I wanted to speak to Massachusetts issues with their social equity program and its rollout, but that's fine. So with regards to my second point that I didn't wanna bring up was addressing the medical marijuana industry. And so I just briefly wanted to, I think it's opportune to share the concerns of our constituents. A lot of them are in the medical marijuana marketplace. So these are patients and caregivers. And a lot of their concerns, and I wanna be mindful here, not to impugn the dispensaries in our state, but there's a reason why Vermont has one of the least successful medical marijuana programs in the entire country. And a lot of that has to do with access to the market. Most of our patients and caregivers get their medicine from their own gardens that they grow themselves and not from our dispensaries. So as we move forward in looking to administer the medical marijuana program moving forward, I would just be mindful of that where we're coming from and be mindful to seek improvements moving forward. And maybe have public forums and ask the medical marijuana community to speak to some of the troubles and issues that they themselves have experienced as it either gets rolled into the CCB or whatever you guys choose. I wanted to put that on the record. There are issues that I think are worth exploring as you guys move forward with the CCB. So thank you for allowing me the opportunity to include those and I'll save my comments on social equity for later time. Thank you, thank you. But there is, I mean, okay, so what I would suggest now is that we look at what Michelle I think just put up. I don't have it, I only have one screen here, but it is. She emailed it to all of us. I know, but I only have one computer. I can't do email on this at the same time because I only have one thing. But what I would like to do is look at the Cannabis Business Development Fund. We talked a little bit about that the other day. It's on page six of the bill. If you're looking at the bill, I don't know where it is that this, Michelle, where is it? Do people have it? Do you know what it is? I sent it, Gail should have gotten that email as well. So I don't know if you want her to share it on the screen or maybe it's posted. But it is, so if people just wanna look at age four or 14 following along at home, it's in section two and it's section, it's seven, VSA sections 986 through 988. I can't figure if you would like me to share that. I don't like, here's my preference. I don't like them shared on the screen because then I can't see anybody. And so if everybody has access to looking at it and people at home will just have to follow along if they can and follow the conversation. It is posted in the documents area on our website. So that's where people who are following along can find it. Yep, thank you. So it substantively begins in 987 because 986 is just the definitions, right? Yes, and they go together but I'm going to start with 987. And what we were asked by judiciary to look at this and I believe that this is when we were talking before about when Senator Rahm first brought her amendment to us and we talked about it before, one of the comments that came up was that we should, we should focus on the individuals or one of the things that we should do is focus on the individuals who are trying to enter this market, who may have a difficulty entering the market for one reason or another, particularly since they've been, it might be, and we talked in judiciary this morning about using the word race. Yes, let's use the word race because there is a racial issue here. So let's do that. And there's also a socioeconomic issue for those poor rural kids from Vermont who might have been impacted. So this is what he set up here is a cannabis business development fund. And I would like us to just talk a little bit about that and see if we want to put that into S25. That's, and if you look at it, it's funded by fees from the integrated licenses. And I believe that Virginia has testified, she wrote to us that they would agree that 3% of the sales up to $50,000 for the first six months from the integrated licenses should go into this fund. So there is potentially $250,000 into the fund because there's five integrated licenses. And then $200,000 from the registration fee fund has been suggested. And then he suggested 10% of the revenue. I would suggest that we ask for an upfront allocation to put into that fund to get it going because we're going to need, if we're really gonna provide technical assistance and loans and grants to people to start their businesses, we can't wait until the businesses have already been started and there's money generated that's a little behind. I mean, it's like putting the course before the cart, right? We need to put the cart in front, which is to get the some money available to people who need to have the loans or grants or the technical assistance. So that's my suggestion. So can we talk about that a little bit? Anybody? The committee or any? Yeah, yeah. Cause I first want to hear from committee and then we'll hear from others. Well, I'm sorry. No, no, go ahead. I like the idea. It's just hard to predict the amount of money that's going to come in and go out. It's the same kind of thing, but I'm certainly support the idea. Jeanette, when you said you want some upfront money, what do you think in a ballpark? What do you think it might take? I have no idea because if you look at what they put, what he has here for use is, and I think this makes perfect sense, is loans and grants to social equity applicants, costs related to administering it, outreach to get to those people and job training and technical assistance. And he also has some research in here, but I think it could all be used up by research. So I think my feeling is that the direct money to the applicants makes sense for the technical assistance. I have no idea of what we're talking about needing here. And I would say $300,000 or $500,000, I don't know. Because you do need to do it first, because otherwise other people will start the businesses and by the time they generate the revenue to provide business support to the people that we're trying to work with, it's gonna be too late because the businesses are already up and running and they'll already be shut out. Right. So, Senator Colomar. Thank you Madam Chair. I'm trying to get my, this is the first time I've seen this bill, so I'm trying to understand it. I think there's probably a difference between one-time money and sustaining money that's gotta be found every single year. We will obviously be, one of the governors told us getting $1.2 billion at some point, but I think we do need to be careful not to use one-time money to begin a program that then will need to be funded every single year and there won't be any more one-time money. So if you're suggesting $300,000 of one-time money, I think I could support that, but if I'm reading this bill correctly, it says $2 million per fiscal year or 10% of the revenues, not to exceed that number. And again, that goes back to what we had said earlier with Senator Roms and then when I think that that's coming out of the fund again, we have no idea how much that's gonna generate. Yeah, I didn't add that to my source of revenue because I think that's after the fact as Anthony said, you need to have the money upfront. And I think you could set it up as a revolving loan fund. So that if somebody got a $50,000 loan and then they had a successful business, they could start paying back into that. And we do that in housing a lot in rehab work and it works well. So Senator Clarkson. So this strikes me as a lot of work for the cannabis. Well, first of all, did Brian, do we have a fiscal? No, this doesn't have anything. No, wait, can I just ask my question, which is, do we have a fiscal note on this because whoever would have done the fiscal note could actually give us some numbers that would make sense. So we're not shooting in the dark. Either that or it would be great to have ACCD or a business development to sort of get a notion of what are real costs and what would be good solid projections. The technical assistance could be provided by a host of people. I mean, this to me would just hijack the cannabis control board. There are other groups that are qualified to provide technical assistance to new business people. And this would be a great partnership with our community action agencies who have micro businesses who already have technical expertise. We don't need to reinvent the wheel here. No, this isn't the cannabis control board that is doing this. It says to compensate the cannabis control board for any costs related to the permissions of low interest loans and grants to qualified social equity applicants. And it has the cannabis control board overseeing a lot of this. And it strikes me that, you know, this will just totally, this is a very specific function. It's a business development function. And we have plenty of groups in this state that do that well. And this might be a perfect partnership with our community action agencies or with ACCD we can figure out or with ag. So if you look at page seven, it does say that ACCD is going to administer the loans and grants. Oh, okay. Sorry, I see, yep, further down, right. So I don't know why you would have to compensate the cannabis control board. Sorry, yeah, I don't either. I would let quite honestly, given how tenuous the whole scene is at the moment, I would agree to the purpose and let the mechanics be worked out as it all evolves and let ACCD come back to us with a proposal of how to organize it. So I guess the first question is, are we in agreement that there should be a cannabis business development fund set up? I guess that's the first question. And this is for individuals. This isn't communities. This is for individuals who... And then you're gonna have to identify who those individuals are, but... And you can't discriminate by race. I mean, you know, no, you can't. Legally, we're not allowed to. You can have priorities and you can do it. It's hard. You have to have a proxy criteria that is fair for anyone. I'm sorry. I mean, I think this is a problem we face when I am in the development of this asset gap though I'm working on. It is, you know, legally, we are not allowed to discriminate by protected. We have protected classes. We're not allowed to discriminate. And so that is, you know, we can come up with proxy criteria for things, but that is one of our challenges here. Well, first of all, let's go back. Do we agree that there should be some kind of a fund available to people who want to start a business in this emerging market that don't have access to funds, whether it's because they've been discriminated against because they've been incarcerated because they come from neighborhoods where there's more arrests than in other neighborhoods, whatever the criteria is, do we agree that we should have a fund? I guess that's the first question. And I'm not even sure how this all plays out because H-14 is in the house. Right, and it could be added in the house too. No, no, H-414 is in the house right now. Has it been taken up? I don't know, I'm not, I don't know and I don't even know what committee it went to. So- Bill was introduced this morning. Do you know what committee it went to, Mark? I can check for you. Okay, great. It probably went to commerce. I don't know, but- I would imagine it went to GovOps, but I'll find out. That's my guess. GovOps or commerce. So my first question is, can we agree that we should have a fund for people who need loans or grants? I would vote yes. Yes. I would say as long as it's equitable for everybody. Well, we have to figure out who it is and I will give you some examples that were brought up this morning that around the definitions of who it is. And do we agree that we should probably put some upfront money in there instead of waiting for the money to come from a revenue source that's already generating money that these people can't get into because they're behind the eight ball. Yes, and not to interrupt if you just wanna hear from the committee, but I think that's what Jeffrey was talking about with the Massachusetts experience that about 1% of the applicants in the first round would have qualified under this because none of them could start a business without some additional help at the beginning, some access to capital. So I think- So we need to have upfront- That's the hard way, yeah. We could ask ACCD what they would recommend putting in for some kind of a- Yeah, I think it would be great to let ACCD to work to develop this and set a time when it needs to come back, but I think your idea of doing it as a revolving loan fund is a great idea because that just keeps feeding money back into the community and it hopefully makes it sustainable. But it has, I think the purpose of this is to go to people who come from communities that have been disproportionately affected by the prohibition of cannabis. Okay, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask ACCD if they could give us a sense of how much upfront money would be needed to go into funding this if they have any sense at all of what that might be and maybe I think there are some, they might get some help from the women's commission, the commission on women, in terms of what the kinds of outreach that they were able to do and does that make sense? I think you'd be a better partner with the community action agencies who already do micro business setup. They already work at this population. I think they already are doing this kind of work and providing technical expertise to this community. I think they would be great partners and they have partnered with ACCD on a bunch of COVID stuff. So I mean, and they run the micro business program. I mean, this is in many ways a piece of the micro business program. So are you suggesting that we not involve ACCD? I think it's a conversation we should have with the agent, with those two groups, ACCD and the community action agencies. But Michelle was trying to say something. I apologize. Sorry, Michelle. I just wanted to add and I can pour the language to you, but I just wanted to let y'all know that in Act 164, and I'm just gonna read from the bill if you don't mind just so that I don't miss anything. Already it's law that ACCD in collaboration with the agency of agriculture, food and markets is required to provide business and technical assistance to Vermont applicants with priority for services based on criteria adopted by the board in accordance with the act. And in those priorities are applicants to our women applicants and BIPOC community applicants. So that's already in current law that ACCD is supposed to be doing that. And then there's another provision that says that no later than September 1st of this year, the board is to begin working with Department of Labor, ACCD, Department of Corrections and the Director of Racial Equity to develop outreach training and employment programs focused on providing economic opportunities to individuals who have historically been disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition. So I just wanted to let you know that there is something that was passed last year that's there, so. So what we need to do is just set up the fund and give it some money because the rest is already there, right? Right, and I would check with ACCD and with AG maybe about what an appropriate amount would need to seed it. Yeah, that's what I had suggested. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah. And Madam Chair, it was House GovOps that it was. It was, okay. Okay. So I have no idea how these are gonna fit together or where we're going or what it is a big mystery to me because they're taking up one of these and I don't know what they'll come up with. And if we end up with two different things, I don't know how we do that, but I will recommend to Judiciary that we set up this Cannabis Business Development Fund and that we prefund it. Senator Rahm? I don't know if this makes the timing even more complicated, but this sounds like a really good question on the details for the advisory board as well. I feel like this is exactly the kind of group thinking from different people's lived experiences that we need to understand what would actually work. And I just don't know how that jives with like the April piece of getting them together. Well, my guess is that they won't, nobody will be coming back to us with anything before May because I mean, we don't even have the members of the board yet. So, and I don't know when we'll have them. Well, it may at some point at least be useful for us to also look at the way the Massachusetts Equity Fund shifted after their lessons learned and how they constructed their program after realizing it fell flat the first time. You know what, I think that's a great idea because we don't need to reinvent the wheel. If Massachusetts has done this and done it successfully and they shifted gears and did some redesign, it would be great to hear from them. Okay, so I'm not sure where we go now because I mean, I have some thoughts about some of the things in H14, 414, but I don't know that it's even worth addressing them because if we put something into S25 and they do something different in H14 or 414, I don't know where that leaves us. Well, 414 just got introduced to a committee. It's not making crossover. So that's, you know, it's not... That's true. Okay. I wouldn't worry about it because it's not even gonna be a bill that will probably be able to be ready for the end of this session. So this is the live instrument for this conversation. So I would... Good. Thank you for bringing me back to reality. I was getting my head all wrapped around here. Senator Polina. Yeah, I just wanna be clear whether what Michelle just read to us is in law now and we're saying that it's possible that it would supersede the need for what we've been talking about doing in 414. Seems like 414 was a lot more specific, but are we feeling that we could go with what's an existing law that what Michelle read to us with maybe a little bit of tweaking or do we think that's adequate? I guess what I'm saying because 414 seemed to lay out a lot of particulars and what Michelle read to us, which is in law now seemed more general. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just asking if that's really what we wanna do. Well, I don't know, Michelle, maybe you can comment on that, but I think that what isn't in there is setting up the fund. Right, now I agree with that. And pre-funding it. Yeah, that part we'd still need to do. Yeah. And then I don't know how much detail we need to put in there, Michelle. I would, I'd let the people identified as being responsible for it, design it and come back to us for us to confirm it. But I think it's premature, you know, ceding it, yes, and then sending them off to design it. But I don't think we have the time right now or the expertise to do that here. So we would be asking them to design the program looking at other programs that have been successful and to come back to us with how the program would be administered and how they would define who the preferred applicants are. Does that make sense? To define eligibility so that we accomplish our goals in enabling disproportionately affected populations. Right, and that's a conversation that we can direct them to have that conversation with the advisory board and with community groups. I think. So this is the cannabis control board having this empowerment. No, I think that we're empowering ACCD to come back. Oh, ACCD, okay. Yeah. And Agency of Ag, I believe, is included. I think Michelle said that Ag was included in that. Well, that's just under existing law with regard to providing technical assistance. That doesn't have anything to do with loans. So I think, so what I'm hearing from y'all is that you would establish the fund. You'd seed the fund with money for FY22. But you, and you would kind of scope it out in terms of what you want the purpose of the fund to be and that it would be a revolving loan fund but that you would ask ACCD to come back to you with recommendations about the criteria or do you want to allow them? I mean, I'm just trying to think of the timing aspects. So as you know the, I don't know whether or not they're gonna be able to follow the existing timeline but it would be that the first applications under the current timeline would be accepted in March 1st of next year. And so I guess, you know, I'm thinking about timing. If they've got, if ACCD's got to come back to you and then you have to pass legislation in order to get the statutory criteria then you might have a little bit of a time issue there. Do you, you could have, I mean, I hate to even entertain the idea but we're probably gonna be here some time in the fall like we were last year, right? With the money or through June. I hate to totally like book myself already in August after last year but you know, we could put a later date like that and then, you know, you can pass it then so that it's in place beforehand. I just wanna kind of, you know, we have to think about this constantly evolving timeline and all the moving pieces because it's really, things are really kind of crashing into each other. So, but does that generally sound like what it is that you want? So. Yeah, but ACCD would develop criteria and design a program for a revolving loan fund to, you know, to enable this population we've identified that we wanna benefit from these opportunities. Right, but would they need to come back to you with their recommendations for the criteria and things like that? And then the legislature adopted it. You wouldn't be saying develop it and then go with it, right? I think so. Yeah, we need to approve it. Okay. And just the timing makes sense for that to do it in a way that's what I'm thinking in terms of, you know, I could do something where it's. They're gonna be hammered between now and the end of, I mean, just given that money that's about to hit us from the feds. ACCD, a huge piece of that responsibility is gonna be with ACCD. So just thinking of their timing and what we know, Kasia and I know from what they're gonna get in Senate economic development. We also have to be thoughtful about their time. Right, but you don't want them reporting to next January because that's gonna be too late. And so you can have them report to July 1st assuming that you're gonna, I don't know, I feel like I'm jinxing, I'm messing it up for everybody. I'm assuming that you're not gonna fully adjourn when, you know, we're on time. ACCD does not have to be the one that does all the work here. They can hand this off to a committee made up of the advisory committee and some people from the cap agencies or however they wanna do it. They don't have to. Well, we could direct, we could say that and encourage them in partnership with the cap agencies. And the advisory committee. And the advisory council or whatever the car. And the community groups. I mean, they should be taking some, I think that the way we define this is going to be really important. And that is what they found in Massachusetts. And I believe in Illinois was that they had good laws, but they were poorly implemented. And as a result, the people that they wanted to benefit from it were not the people who benefited from it. And this morning in, I'm just gonna throw this out. This morning in judiciary, we looked at the definitions and the definition of an impacted community is really all of Vermont because you only have to meet one of the criteria. And so it really is all of Vermont plus a lot of the rest of the country. And then if you look at the member of an impacted family that's eligible, it's an individual who has a parent, legal guardian, child spouse or dependent, or was a dependent of an individual who was arrested or convicted or adjudicated delinquent for something that's now expungible. That means that Joe Benning and his family are eligible under this because he was arrested for a marijuana conviction or a marijuana, he wasn't convicted, but he was arrested. And you certainly would not say that he, and he was the one that brought this up, that he was an disproportionately impacted person here. But it is so broad that it really needs a lot of work and they should be working with the community groups and the advisory committee on who are the people that we're trying to get to here? Who are the people we're trying to do? It needs to be better targeted. And I think that if you involve community groups and the community action agency, the cap agencies, I think you will have a great group that you'll have terrific input. And yeah, I think that we need to have, it'd be better to find and yeah. Okay. Can I ask just to Allison, you said the cap and you're using some jargon, I don't work in. Oh, okay, the community action agencies are generally referred to as the cap agencies, but they run the micro business, they run the micro business program and they did a huge amount in providing technical expertise and direct grants to disproportionately affected income communities. I mean, they deal with the smallest newest business of low income people all over the state. They do a terrific job. And then so if I just refer to the community action agencies as like who they consult with, that's a known term and that's fine to the legislation. Okay. There are five of them that cover the state. Okay, thanks. And you have capstone as yours. I do know them, I do know them, yes. Right, Sue Minter runs capstone. Yep, Madam Chair. I just wanted to make sure you have Monica's hand that's been up for a while. Oh, I'm sorry, I don't look for little yellow hand. So thank you, Senator Rom. Monica. Yes, thank you so much. I don't mean to interrupt, it's an amazing conversation. I just wanted to let you know that I need to excuse myself. I've got a conflict and I didn't want to slink away. I wanted to at least say goodbye and thank you. Thank you. And we'll invite you the next time we have the conversation we'll make sure that you get on the list. Great, thank you. And actually I just wanted to add because it has come up a couple of times just to let you know that the interviews are happening now for the cannabis control board. Oh, good. I wasn't sure if you were aware of that timeline. So that is moving forward. Do you have an expectation of appointments? Not yet, but certainly the interviews are happening. So I think that that's obviously the very first step. That's the start. I will say there were really good candidates. Yes, agreed. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thanks, Keisha, for pointing that out. I never look for those little yellow hands. So, yes, Senator Collamore. Thank you again, Madam Chair. That was why I raised my hand too. I saw her hand up. I don't normally check those, but the other thing I just want to mention, I think we need to be careful if we are assuming that we will be back. And I certainly don't have any inside information, okay? I really, really don't. But the governor has indicated that the timelines for the 1.2 billion, which will be coming to Vermont, extend at least two years out so that there's not that pressure to allocate funds as quickly as we did in the past year. Remember, we had December 31st as the drop dead date to allocate funds that were coming from the COVID relief funding. So I don't know that we won't be coming back, but I don't think we can assume that we will either. No, you think you're right, but I think we may be here for a bit longer. So let's ask them if they can come back to us by, and I know this is putting a lot of pressure on them, but by the end of April. You can try it, we should ask, we should just ask them if that's realistic. No, it probably isn't realistic, but they can come back and say, we can't do it by then. So, can I just ask, but you're saying you would put it in, you would informally ask them to come to you, or you would put it in legislation and hope that this bill is gonna pass the house. It may not pass by that time. We can informally ask them also. Right, I would just remind you how long cannabis took in the house. Thank you for that sobering fact. You mean five years? We could just head this off by actually asking them in to testify this week. Okay, I see Marcus has his hand up. I see his little yellow hand there now. That's a black hand, Madam Chair. Oh, sorry about that, it looked yellow on mine. No, it's fine. The very funny. I wanted to just for, I guess, more process. I wanted to just make sure I had some clarity on when it was appropriate in your committee to chime in, because I kind of wanted to come back. I wanted to come in about 15 minutes ago and I feel like I just need to understand what that process is so we can probably get some clarity on that. So as a result, I'm gonna have to go back a little bit because there were some things that you were talking about earlier that I wanted to comment on. Would this be an appropriate time to do so or should I just? Sure, sure. Okay, so at the beginning of the, there's so much, but at the beginning of the conversation about this particular area on, I think it's 987, page six of 24, the first thing that you opened with was, is that the, here on line eight with the fees that are collected pursuant section 990, which is integrated license, that there was already a pre-negotiated cap on that, or at least a discussion that was in play, that in addition to the tune of about $50,000. So I was just first of all curious to understand how that was arrived at. And because I think a lot of the rest of the conversation is really premised on that being limited to $50,000, or at least partially. And also wanted to, go ahead. Are you gonna say something? Well, I was gonna try and answer that. Yeah, I'll just pause. And I think that it was suggested in the original draft, if I'm not mistaken, and it was in judiciary and the, the Spensaries agreed with it the third, the three pre-negotiated cap on that. And the Spensaries agreed with it the third, the 3% up to the $50,000, which would essentially could be up to $250,000 since there are five dispensaries. But I think our thought here was that it would make, that money isn't gonna be generated until we were actually up and running. So. So, until the fees are collected, correct? So is to pre-fund the, the program and then these other fees can go into it, but to, to put some upfront money into it to get started. Okay. So does that mean that the, this might be also towards for, I don't know, maybe Michelle left us, but. I just, I was trying to understand at what point in the process, the fees were actually collected. By the way, Michelle ran out of power. So she'll be logging back in, but she's switching devices. Yeah. I don't think it's really important that that question be answered right now. I was just, just, I did, I can go back and research that myself, but I was, I do understand the concept of one-time money. And don't find it very useful for process whereby there's something that we're trying to sustain, but I don't think it's, I don't think it's, I don't think it's, I don't think it's, I don't think it's, I don't think it's definitely to get it off the ground. Definitely. So I do appreciate that. So I just wanted to. Mention that. Yeah. Also. Mark, if I can say, I don't think it's necessarily just one time money. It's pre, we're talking about pre-funding, but there could be an allocation. From the appropriations committee every year. We're not assuming that it will be just one time. We're not assuming that we should pre-fund it right now. Correct. Thanks for that. And the, um, I think there was a, um, a conversation about. I think it's because I think, I think I waited a little bit too long to get into this. So if I could just have just a little bit of leniency, just unpacking some of what I just heard, just a little bit. There's some, um, There's some, um, There's a question of earmarking funds into communities, uh, impacted by Meryl, uh, marijuana. Um, In conversation about who. I should be benefiting from this revenue stream. Um, I guess I would encourage the committee to, to read H414. Uh, because there, there are some, um, There's some language here that, um, Does speak in fact of impact disproportionately impacted. Areas. Not people, but areas. And that section is, um, It's called a community is 989, uh, community social equity program. And that's how all of that gets fleshed out. So there's a whole group of folks that parade off and go figure out what this whole thing about, uh, This work that needs to be done in the community needs to look like, uh, ex officials, blah, blah, blah. If I can say that on the record in, and I think they, the, um, So I think it's important to understand that some of these definitions, they apply to certain sectors and sections rather of the policy. And I think it, it mischaracterizes the policy. Again, it came from us and mischaracterizes the policy to, to attribute various definitions to the policy broadly. Uh, so when we, when we speak of, uh, social equity applicants, for example, um, we, I think we agreed in judiciary and again, you have to appreciate the fact that I've been following this thing from, from this committee to judiciary, uh, because this is how we do this. Um, But what we agreed to is, is that there is in fact the need, uh, for some additional language, Senator Clarkson, that, um, that would identify, um, ownership or control by, uh, folks of the BIPOC community. Uh, we were, we were actually urged to do that because, uh, in truth, this bill reflects very, if almost no language, uh, that, that would indicate anybody from the American descendants of slavery or BIPOC community. If you look at it closely, there's nothing in here. And we did that quite by design because we're afraid of the 14th amendment, uh, because we know that historically, just as you said, um, many people are of the mindset that you are of. And that is, is that they will try to dismantle this because it unfairly advantages certain people and we're even calling that discrimination now. So, so this is, um, so I just wanted to make it clear that just catching up with you that disproportionate impacted areas refers to 989, which really goes right into the conversation that Senator Rahm started earlier. It addresses that and it talks about that, that whole piece. I know we're not going to cover that right now, but the, the, our conversation of social equity applicants, the conversation of social equity applicants, which is that definition there, it applies to 989. I think I'm, I think I'm pairing these up, right? If you're looking in 989, that's when you start talking about, uh, this whole idea of, um, um, I'm sorry, I beg your pardon, 987 social equity applicants refers to 987. Yeah. So if you're looking at the, at the cannabis business development fund and under the definition of social equity applicants, that is where we would insert the additional language outlining, outlining that in addition to these that are highlighted in that, if you read those, uh, carefully it talks about, um, you know, ownership, it talks about a person's been convicted, so on and so forth, but that would be added in addition to those. It wouldn't be a sole criteria, just like, you know, Fisher versus Texas, you can't have it as a sole, uh, criteria. It would be one of several criteria is that would need to be to be satisfied there, uh, which, which would really fill that out quite nicely. And then back over to the whole cannabis development fund, and I appreciate being able to unpack this because there was some questions, there was some discussion about some eight, the ACCD and as well as, um, the, uh, community, the, um, the, uh, the network, the community, uh, the community justice network, uh, which is actually outlined later in this policy to community justice network is actually identified later, uh, in this policy. The, um, there, there's just, I think this mindset where you've arrived at, that the language was already in 164 and I just wanted to state that we were fully aware of the language in 164 when we crafted for 14. It's the reason why we crafted for 14 because we didn't view the language in H and in 164 as being sufficient to accomplish these equity, uh, uh, this equity work that we were seeking to accomplish. And that was evidenced by the comments that the governor made in his non-signing statement. So when you, you start looking at the ACCD, it's very important to understand that, you know, with age three 36, that's in play right now. H three 36 is in play right now. Um, one of the things that Curtis, uh, Curtis read, uh, brought to their attention in his administration, uh, partners, uh, administration of the $2.5 million last year was his inability to get his hands around technical assistance, nor does ACCD have that capability right now. So they're currently in play right now, trying to add capacity even to ACCD. They just don't have it right now. Right. Other point that I want to, um, um, point out is this is very important that we're talking about some very targeted and very specific work that needs to be done in this commit in these communities. And I know cap is being mentioned in ACCD is being mentioned, but if they were actually fitting the bill for what it is or the type of work that we're talking about, we wouldn't be having this conversation. And again, this goes back to the problem that we have with systemic racism is these services and how they're delivered in the mechanisms in which they are delivering them with, they are not meet, they're not reaching our commit communities. Again, um, you know, I cannot speak for every black person in Vermont, but I can speak for the Vermont racial justice alliance. And I can, and I can also give you the premise upon which we brought this bill to you. We're doing work in economic development right now. We're doing work in housing right now. We're doing work in healthcare right now. In every single one of these systems, the system is missing us. Okay. Which is why we're doing this work. So it's an invalid assumption to assume that the ACCD is going to be Johnny on the spot on this. And it's also an invalid assumption to assume that the, the network or the community justice centers network is going to somehow or another, um, you know, be able to fill in and be Johnny on the spot here, as well as place additional stuff on the racial equity executive directors plate and thinking that she's going to somehow or another be profoundly more impactful with less resources when we haven't even, um, you know, assured that. So I think, you know, respectfully, I think that where you're, I think the trajectory that you are on is, is, is misprinted. And I think it's misdirected. And I hate to be that person in the room about it, but I think there's, there are more things that we need to unpack here, unpack here surrounding, uh, what it is that we're trying to solve in, we, and I think somehow or another we need to comport our minds to understanding that to do the traditional systems that we are trying to invoke in solving these problems is like using a screwdriver when you really need a hammer, you know, and I don't mean that forcefully, no pun intended, but I just, what I'm getting at is, is I think that, um, I would kindly request that you strongly consider giving additional attention to the policy that we submitted in 414. And the fact that it is in fact thought out that we have put quite a significant amount of thought in it. And I would also, um, urge you, uh, if you could please to not only consider, uh, this section here in 987, but also, um, as I had indicated earlier in the area of 989 is crucially important that you please take a look at that and how, and understand how all of this goes together. And then finally, uh, towards the end of this policy, um, over in any area of nine, uh, any area of integrated licenses, uh, which is, uh, section three of this policy, it lays out that the, um, it lays out all of the property criteria that we, that we would prefer, uh, integrated licenses, uh, uh, holders, uh, to be able to sign up for, to be able to really lift this program up in a sustainable way. Thank you for the time. Um, and I'll stick around. Yeah, I think I, I appreciate that, but we are not going to deal with H414. That's a house bill. And there is no way on earth that we can deal with H414 before Friday. We will deal with H414 when it comes back to us. If they, whenever, whenever they get it. And I appreciate that comment. Um, and I, I thought we had committed to taking up the conversation of communities and, um, how to best get this work done in communities at a different time as opposed to today. Um, and so I, I'm a little confused now about, and I will say that on page five of S 25 on the original bill, the, um, judiciary committee is changing that language under the social equity so that it actually, um, specifically points out that it's, um, that it's BIPOC communities and socioeconomic communities. But there, um, I don't know if Michelle is working on that, but we talked about that this morning. And so that is, that's being done by the judiciary committee. So we didn't talk. Just as a point of clarification, the, um, the reason why we're talking about, um, H414 is, is, is because, um, that, that language there is, is, is the language that you would start at 987. So I just, I think that the sections we're looking at 986 for 990 are lifted from 414. Exactly. Thank you. So, so that's, so just, that's the clarity is, is that we are talking about 414. And then the other piece is, is that, um, you know, and Michelle, you can probably go back with, you know, for the record, but I think the last thing we did in judiciary this morning was agreed that we were going to do a review of the legislation. Uh, in house in Senate go box. About a section three. Uh, I think that's the last, the very last thing, uh, that we agreed upon before we left that committee this morning. So I was under the impression, um, because I think, uh, Senator Beirut made it very clear that anything that we arrived at any, uh, conclusions that we arrived at in this committee, that we would need to go back and bring it to judiciary. So, so I'm running back and forth from Senate judiciary and house go box to get this done. And I'm not going to do whatever it is to get this done. So I'm, I'm a willing player and you just tell me how you want to get this done. Well, what I want to do is if we have some language to add to section three of S. 25, that's fine. I am not willing to add the, all the language from H. 414 around the communities and the, and the, um, uh, that's a house bill and they're going to deal with that. Um, they're going to have time to start picking apart that language. We, we can't do it. I, I don't know if other committee members. Feel that way or not, but just, just the, um, the issue that I brought up about, um, Joe Benning being qualified under this, he, he absolutely would be a person who would under this definition. Um, I think that's a big difference for one of these loans. And that doesn't make any sense to me, because it says, uh, the member of a family. That's exactly what it says in here. And it says. Under social equity applicant. You have to meet one or more of these. One or more of these. If you've been arrested or convicted. Your house bill goes to that person under this definition in here. And, and that's why I think that we need to, we need to have somebody. From my perspective, if the house wants to pass it like it is, that's their, their business, but I, I for one cannot put that into S 25. I don't know where other committee members are on here, but I, I can't do that. I think that we need to add the cannabis business development fund. we need to pre-fund it. And we can say where other funding sources might come from in the future. And we can ask ACCD to work with whoever the groups are that should be involved in this to help to come up with some suggestions about who would be eligible applicants. But, and I don't know who those, I don't know if it's, Kaysha had suggested the advisory committee. That might be the group or it might be somebody else. Kaysha, did you have? I don't know if this simplifies things but or complicates them more, but I'm personally thinking people from historically marginalized groups, which David Hall has been helping define through Ledge Council, maybe others have too, those who've been incarcerated on a charge related to cannabis and the advisory board can come up with other categories as needed or as sort of they look at that and then decide that it's inadequate. And is it and or or? The historically marginalized is or in in Carcer. I don't know, I haven't thought that exactly through, but I think if you've been incarcerated for marijuana you're very reluctant, you need technical assistance, you're very reluctant to do anything that could be seen as potentially on the wrong side of the law. I think it would be a fair thing to do even if that person doesn't come from a historically marginalized group, but I'd be willing to let that go if the rest of the committee disagreed. I'm just trying to think small groups of categories and then the advisory board can add if they. Yeah, that makes sense. I just I just want them to have some some criteria besides just having been incarcerated because there are people who've been incarcerated who come out and do very well for themselves. And I would hate to see somebody I guess like they did in Illinois put put a person in as the titular head of a company to get the funds. So I think that there need to be some some more criteria than just that you've been incarcerated and agree. I agree. I think you need a bunch of criteria and I think that this is where some of the technical expertise and ACCD and the CAPS and the CAP agencies would be helpful in establishing them. Well, I think we need to involve the the communities that are being affected here because I think Mark is right that that the people who are currently doing the business clearly don't understand the the impact that it's had on. I think the term Keshia used was historically marginalized marginalized communities. So we need to have that voice in there and helping them to determine the but Keshia, you had a good idea to just have a couple categories and then have the board. The advisory board. I'm really enjoying giving the advisory board more authority. I just think it it's it should have it's a broader group of stakeholders who were pulling together who have a range of lived and professional experience around those topics. And I want to look to you to answer some pretty specific questions. Okay, I I think I like that idea. And then so that would be in section three of S 25, right? That we would add that language to the to A and B. Yeah, I look to Michelle to see if I don't want it. So on B is I'm taking out the and re and totally redoing that and creating establishing the funds. And and then directing a CCD to report back to the general assembly around the criteria, right, for the specifics for the program. And you said May first, the board, the advisory board is only going to meet according to your earlier amendment, they have to be seated by April 1, which it's not even clear that the board will be seated by April 1. Right. So I just want to make sure everybody's kind of keeping track of the calendar here. We need like a wish we had our whiteboard. I want to make a decision I can I can update I have a long timeline of Act 164 is rollout. I mean, I can put together for you once you decide on this. I guess I just want to be careful about making it so tight and some, you know, you get weeks behind and it falls apart. So so why don't we put though that that a CCD and consultation with the advisory committee and affected community groups and they can figure out between those two the advisory committee and a CCD they can they should be able to figure out that they can talk to different groups of people that can talk to the prisoners. Right. Quite honestly, quite honestly, ACCD strength is going to be in establishing a program, a business program. That's what they're not necessarily the criteria for who's eligible. I mean, I think that's more the advisory council and and the technical expertise is, you know, a combination of ACCD and the cap and the cap agencies. I think the criteria for who's eligible probably makes the most sense to have the advisory council or committee do it. ACCD strength is in the business design and implementation. How does it work? How does it work? Well, how can we set up a revolving fund? All that stuff. That's where their expertise is. Yep, you're right. So we are going to informally ask them the amount of the pre funding and that it be a revolving long term, but that's not necessarily going to go into the statute. We would we could we I think that we should put an appropriation on it. And I think that that's what Senator Sears thought and Phillip also when we talked this morning thought we should put an appropriation on here, but we'll ask them informally what what they would suggest putting in as a pre funded the initial one. Right, because remember it takes time for these businesses to set up and if it's going to be a revolving fund, it'll take time for them to do well enough to be able to hit a threshold where they're giving back into the end of the fund. I mean, all that requires design and thought. I mean, when we first set up the down the first time the homeowners down payment assistance program and took seven years for there to be enough money putting put back into the revolving fund for it to become a revolving fund. So all that stuff needs to be worked out to accomplish what you're we're trying to get at here and it's going to take time. So Michelle, why don't we say ACCD should come back with how how a program would be set up and administered and the advisory committee would come back with a report on who what the criteria is for applicants. Right, I think that's a good. Does that make sense to me first date. I don't care what date you put in there it's we're so far behind now it's I don't know how to even do this. Yeah, I think I think ask ACCB what's real I mean I don't think May 1 is realistic given what's about to happen. They can probably set up the program really quickly they have all kinds of it would probably take somebody about half an hour to well let's ask I mean I think that's a choose from their from other programs that they administer I think that the more time is going to be needed for the setting up the criteria for who's eligible. Yep, I agree. Madame Chair we've been sitting for two hours I just have to stretch myself. Alright, so let's take a little break and then come back for a little while and and then I want also to maybe we've hashed this one out enough that we can Michelle can get something written up for us and we can take it up again and then I mean not today necessarily because you won't have time to do it today and then let's look at the license structure that Graham talked about this morning the senator meeting at four or not five okay five they changed it to five so we'd have more time in committee